LFH sees XSH - But is it LENR?

While writing up these experiments- performed around 12 months ago for a 'lookingforheat.com' newsletter it occurred to me that the reported phenomenon might be explained by reference to another paper I wrote recently- 'patents revealed !' which is in this forum.

Simple And Accessible – But Is It LENR?Alan Smith, Sam Hansson and Martin Moore. November 2016.

ABSTRACT.While investigating the electrolytic activation of granular carbon for use as a catalyst for generating pure hydrogen from water and a metallic hydroxyl ion acceptor, members of a research group here and in the USA witnessed sudden and unexpected evolution of considerable amounts of thermal energy, and the release of what is probably Beta radiation. In all cases this resulted in (at least) the breaching of the electrolysis cell. We present a full account of the test methodology, a hypothesis for the origin of the heat element of this event, and offer assistance to researchers who would like to investigate this further.

How optimistic are you that your radiation measurements will be reproducible?

It shouldn't be hard to get to the bottom of whether those clicks are beta particles once you can get them to show up reliably. I like that you've identified lead as an important variable. I would not assume that there was any loading of hydrogen involved, in the manner of palladium, or that loading is something to be optimized. Simple adsorption of hydrogen might be adequate (assuming hydrogen is even relevant).

How much? Was there any commensurate chemical changes? Look at the mass of the reactants, was there far more heat than any chemical reaction can produce?

With 800 grams of carbon in the tank there is plenty of chemical fuel, and the system has also been treated to plenty of electrical input. Over 8 days around 400AH. So there is a whole heap of potential energy present - enough to vaporize the tank and contents entirely I think. Even though it is by Pd/D standards a huge system. Also I am not sure how we might characterise some possible chemical changes in such an open system either- if for example we were suddenly producing organics -alkanes perhaps, it would smell - but if it were CO/CO2 it would not.

The system I write about here was set up to try to find a trigger, and is insufficiently 'sterile' at the minute for serious forensic chemistry. Or indeed for calorimetry -this phenomenon is at the moment an 'outlier' without much in the way of good quantitative data or reliable triggering. A bit too much like 'spontaneous human combustion' for my liking.

We have not yet 'gone back' to re-run these experiments, other group members are focusing on some other aspects of CC - like getting it to work without burning Aluminium. This is at the moment an 'outlier' group of results. However, the team are pulling together more data of all kinds (which may result in a partial rebuttal of my hypothesis) which I will present as soon as I can pull it together and write it up.

My feeling is that this is so cheap and easy that perhaps more forum members could try it? You can buy everything needed simply and cheaply everywhere, there are (at the start anyway) no toxins involved, and the radiation we have seen is low-energy betas AFAWK, and short-lived. But the tank contents are messy- this is definitely a garage experiment, no way you want to be scraping this off your shag-pile carpets!

Anyways, more data as soon as I collate it - I have 96 pages of group-produced PDF documents to wade through first.

It is not clear to me, but does the effect happen by using ONLY lead sheet electrodes, water and nothing else or is carbon still needed as the title suggests? Have you already tried making a simple circuit to periodically invert the electrode polarity?

So far it is 'yes' to 'only with lead', but there has not been enough work done to exclude all other materials- Ni for example. And work on Hydrogen production using H-bridges (square wave HF-AC) is currently proprietary to other group members - and will almost certainly result in a patent application - so (sadly) not up for much discussion here. We have yet do do experiments without carbon - but certainly worthwhile and way less messy than the carbon ones.

BTW, I did a test following the Phillips patent to see if you could make Catalytic Carbon using 5 micron carbon black pigment. Never Again! It does make good CC, but the evil sludge in the tank ended up like a mousse- the Black Blob from Outer Space. It climbed out of the tank and started crawling over the bench, took ages to clean up and I ended up throwing away at least 1 lab-coat.

How confident are you that lead was the missing variable?How optimistic are you that your radiation measurements will be reproducible?

Hi Eric, on the topic of lead see my reply above, on radiation -I am confident that if you see the heat event you will see the radiation. But reproducibility is (as always) the key. So far it has proven to be both elusive and unpredictable. But when it happens you will know all about it.

A couple of anecdotes. One very reliable USA group member had this happen (early on) with a whole 25 litre mix of electrolyte and crushed anthracite, happily it was in his barn. At the time nobody knew anything about radiation btw. The only way he manged to stop the metal tank boiling was to kick the whole lot over and spread the carbon-y mess out on the floor. He swears that some of the carbon was red-hot at this point - and I consider him to be a totally reliable observer. This btw was a 'no-lead' tank -all mild steel. The tank was one electrode and a steel central rod another. So this poses another puzzle!

Second anecdote. Using horizontal electrodes with a carbon/electrolyte sandwich between, another group member came to look at his test to find the upper electrode had been thrown some distance away from a very hot tank. No data logging in use then, sadly.

CAUTIONARY NOTE. Cheap plastic tanks will fail if you get an event- melted through at the bottom is not unknown. So best find somewhere you can make a mess.

Alan Smith, what exactly is the purpose of this thread? Discussing the anomaly or discussing Catalytic Carbon™?

This thread does not have a purpose - it has purposes. Chief purpose to encourage people to experiment with something I consider is interesting and simple. Also it is cheap and accessible. Another motive is that it we are currently in what might be called a 'slow news' period. And it has zero to do with Rossi! As for 'is it CC or LENR' we are discussing, then they are in this instance very closely intertwined. I don't see how one could talk about the XSH without describing CC and the patent, and what it is. That would be like talking about Pd/D without mentioning electrolysis - possible but not always helpful. So you can in this instance decide yourself what you want to discuss, and I will try to answer.

While the writeup is interesting it could be shortened to less than one page if carbon has no active role in the process.

But we don't know what is important. AND please bear in mind that 'electrode swapping' and the role of lead (or not) is part of a totally unproven hypothesis of mine - in fact I may have some info that contradicts it (see above) that i will also write up ASAP.

As for getting it down to one page, I got it down to one paragraph in the 'Abstract' at the start, but writing up the experiment without describing the background seems like worship of brevity for its own sake. I try to make all my posts here brief and to the point, but at times a touch of Lomaxiansm can be useful.

I agree with Jed. There is a lot of carbon oxyde species which are not known by chemists. CO & CO2 are only “high school carbon oxydes”. There is plenty of other forms (I could quote mellitic anhydride, cyclic peroxooxalate of the glow-in-the-dark necklaces and emergency sticks, many biological coumpounds, and also carbonite of the comets.)

Using activated charcoal at the anode is not very Wise, in a safety point of view.

Hi Fabrice. I agree entirely about the many chemical possibilities this system offers. As for using Carbon, at the beginning Electro-activating Carbon was the whole point and purpose. The XSH I reported here is an un-looked-for and unexpected secondary effect.

Betas were picked up by an SBM-20 tube on a Japanese - made Geiger. We are only assuming low-energy Betas at the moment, since they were too penetrating to be Alphas, which our probe would not detect anyway and insufficiently penetrating to be Gammas. A colleague found that with a 'just ignited' tank and contents spread half-way across his bench that there was no detectable increase in count from roughly a meter away, but multiple times background at less than 30cms range. No increase above background was detectable after 1 hour, so whatever was happening it was apparent with the power off, and if a decay product was a short-lived one. But things like soft X-Rays and so on are still possible I suppose.

Big problem with the Anthracite stuff btw is the cocktail of elements it contains, not more than around 96% of good Anthracite is carbon. As for radioactive elements in the lead, the release would appear to have a very short half-life so would so I think they would have decayed even before we bought the material (roofing lead btw).

Attached are shots of a water-proofed probe prior to being buried in the tank, and also the unmodified Geiger with a tube on-board. Commercial plug -we sell them.

Radioactivity: release of trapped Radon or some other radioactive product where the apparent half-life is in fact dispersal. Arguments about radioactivity from Radon ave very complex because we have a chain of transmutations in which radioactive intermediates of different life-times can build up, so that activity measures at equilibrium have both physical and nuclear components.

This is such a can of worms that I'm just saying I don't trust my ability to say what is or is not possible from this mechanism. Perhaps someone else could be more certain.

This is such a can of worms that I'm just saying I don't trust my ability to say what is or is not possible from this mechanism. Perhaps someone else could be more certain.

I agree, I don't trust it either. In an earlier post I likened it to spontaneous human combustion. That's a bit far as analogies but it is only slightly less complex in its possibilities. That is why I have thrown this open for discussion -and if there is any interest( and it seems there might be) then other experimenters are welsome to try (very welcome) and I will publish more data which has just come to light.

A colleague found that with a 'just ignited' tank and contents spread half-way across his bench that there was no detectable increase in count from roughly a meter away, but multiple times background at less than 30cms range. No increase above background was detectable after 1 hour, so whatever was happening it was apparent with the power off, and if a decay product was a short-lived one. But things like soft X-Rays and so on are still possible I suppose.

Betas are generally accompanied by electromagnetic radiation. When a beta is emitted, there is often a delayed gamma photon that follows as the residual nucleus de-excites. In addition there are x-rays that are given off as the beta is stopped in matter. A scintillator detector might be useful here. Betas are stopped by aluminum, so if they are making it through the GM counter window, I suppose this will mean that they have some energy.

I like your point about anthracite having lots of stuff in it, which brings to mind articles I've read about fly ash, as well as THH's point about radon progeny. Lead as well might have some other stuff in it, and it is itself weakly radioactive, with trace amounts of a beta emitter with a 22 year half-life. Although one hopes that you'll eventually be able to infer a single half-life and trace it back to an isotope, I suppose such an attempt might be inherently difficult. There might be several decay chains involved that are overlaid on top of one another, and the dispersal question might also complicate things. Ideally you'll see some sharp peaks in a properly calibrated scintillator that identify the mystery source.

Betas were picked up by an SBM-20 tube on a Japanese - made Geiger. We are only assuming low-energy Betas at the moment, since they were too penetrating to be Alphas, which our probe would not detect anyway and insufficiently penetrating to be Gammas.

Betas are generally accompanied by electromagnetic radiation. When a betas is emitted, there is often a delayed gamma photon that follows as the residual nucleus de-excites. In addition there are x-rays that are given off as the beta is stopped in matter. A scintillator detector might be useful here. Betas are stopped by aluminum, so if they are making it through the GM counter window, I suppose this will mean that they have some energy.

With 800 grams of carbon in the tank there is plenty of chemical fuel, and the system has also been treated to plenty of electrical input. Over 8 days around 400AH. So there is a whole heap of potential energy present - enough to vaporize the tank and contents entirely I think.

I do not think so. There is no place to store the 400 AH. Electrical input does not "build up" over time. This is not a battery. 800 g of carbon is not much chemical fuel. Assuming it has the same energy density as coal it produces ~16 MJ. So, if the experiment produced much more than 16 MJ, either it was anomalous or the calorimetry is wrong.

Of course the graphite would all be gone after it produces 16 MJ. There would be no ash left in the system if it is pure graphite. If it was still there, intact, then it could not have produced even 1 MJ.

Hi Jed. I understand your objections and thank you for them, but right now they are (perhaps) a little too sweeping,

There was no calorimetry, so not possibly wrong. As for the electrical question, actually these cells are quite good photocells producing 1.4V in bright sunlight. And of course electrical energy input could be stored as electrolytically evolved hydrogen and oxygen in that big mass of very ab/adsorbent carbon grains. So plenty of loopholes for an elephant to jump through, which is why I have presented the topic for comment.